


Deep Scars

by Aithilin



Series: Fresh Start [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Bittersweet, Carbuncle - Freeform, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 02:39:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10844772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Neither of them talked about their scars, no matter how familiar they might be. At least, not while awake.





	Deep Scars

The first time Nyx had seen the scars, he had been too distracted to examine them, to think about them. He had been too focused on Noctis’ mouth and eyes and the taste of him, the sight of him dropping to his knees after two months of flirting and banter over a bar counter. He had been too distracted to do more than trace the marks in the morning, grinning as Noct caught his hand and drew him back into that little smile and those soft, sad eyes. 

He had never asked about them afterwards because Noct had never asked about his. Had never asked about the burns, or the lines left by the Ring of Lucii where ancient magic had threatened to break him apart. Noct had never asked or shied away from them, and Nyx wanted to return the favour. 

Some scars were too private to question. Some were too painful. Too much of a reminder of how easily broken they once were. 

It wasn’t until he started dreaming again— the same, persistent memories that pushed away the nightmares of ten years— that he thought to ask. It wasn’t until he started dreaming of a prince, smiling and wicked and long dead that Nyx started to wonder about the familiarity of the marks that crossed his new lover’s body. There were marks he expected to see on a hunter of Noct’s calibre— where claws and bullets and teeth grazed flesh and tore through muscle. There were old wounds that had never quite healed, new wounds that had threatened infection rather than Scourge. There was the line on his chest— the deepest mark— that seemed the most painful, the straightest and least natural of all the wounds his lover must have suffered. 

He had nightmares about that one; visions of seeing his lover pinned by a lance or sword (it was a sword, his mind would always correct) in the same way he pictured his dear King’s death to bring back the dawn. He could see it clearly, the way Ignis had once told him it happened when he pressed for details; retold in nightmares of chasing the little Astral, Carbuncle, through the darkened ruins of the Citadel until he reached the throne room. Nightmares where he could see his new lover and his old lover pinned to the cursed throne, the abused Crystal chained and dimming above the body. 

Libertus had offered that it was to be expected. That he knew how the old Noctis had died, that the new Noct was in a dangerous line of work. That Nyx had the urge to protect and save and shelter what he loved as much as possible. 

He spent mornings tracing that line, caught up in the vision, wondering what he had done to piss off Carbuncle. 

“How did you get this one?” He once asked, when the nightmares had subsided, and Noct had kissed away the edge of unease that it left in him. Once the dreams returned, and he remembered gently tracing a similar scar on his beloved prince, his lost lover from a dead life, he asked about the faint scar that travelled across Noct’s back. Once he remembered tracing the same sort of line— right to left, down across the expanse of back, so old it was only visible in the right light now— back in the comfort of his old apartment, he asked his lover about it. 

“I don’t remember,” was always the answer. 

He didn’t know if it really was a memory— kissing along that line while the noise of his street was barely muffled through the thin walls— or a dream. He dreamt of his old apartment more often now, still stepping through that door that stuck in warm weather, still tidying up as best he could with the anticipation of Prince Noctis slipping in. He still dreamt of the way the prince would settle on his lap in that comfortable chair, or on the counter as he made them dinner. He still dreamt of his prince’s smile, and laugh, and the way his heart beat a little bit faster. 

Only in those dreams now, his prince would hold Carbuncle as they talked. Or the little creature would slip past them like a cat moving between their feet, and his prince would laugh as he tripped. And he would see his new lover in the prince’s place— the same smile, the same laugh— and he’d wake feeling like he had lost something precious again. 

“How do you not remember getting this scar?” He would ask, tracing the mark as Noct watched him with tired eyes, smiling as the light touch to his back drew out shivers. “It must have been bad.”

“I was a kid. I don’t remember. Why?”

“I just…” Nyx wondered if he had only dreamed the same scar on his prince. If it was one of Carbuncle’s tricks as the little creature seemed intent on tormenting him with the happy memories that he had thought were for him only. Not for the damned gods that had started this mess. “It’s familiar.”

“I should hope so, by now.”

“That’s not what I meant,” But he’d kiss Noct’s shoulder and pull himself up from the warmth of their bed. 

He knew that Noct could always counter by asking about his own scars. Could ask how he was burned so badly, why the fire traced the lines of his veins, threated to crack apart his skin, threatened to burn him from the inside out. He knew that Noct had every right to ask, to comment on it, to reject their banter about who was prettiest. 

He knew that Noct would never ask about it. He knew that Noct was waiting for it to come from him, to confirm whatever rumours he might have heard, or offer some story about Insomnia coming down on him as he left with the other civilians. 

Nyx didn’t know how to tell him about what he used to be, about how he had picked up power that was never meant for him. About how an old mentor had turned and tried to burn him away. Nyx didn’t know how to tell his lover about how he had dedicated what he thought was his death to a future he never expected to see. 

He had told the Noctis in his dreams— that familiar young prince who seemed to morph into the hunter who shared his bed. He had spoken at length of it in those visions, with Carbuncle curled in the prince’s lap until the line blurred over who he was telling— the past or the future. 

In his dreams, he could see the same scars when he took his prince to bed. Could trace the dark line on his chest, the jagged edges left by claws and bullets and teeth. In those dreams, he could hear his new lover’s voice telling him stories of each mark— every hunt and near miss, every run in with a beast or scrape and fall. In his dreams, his Little Prince, his Little Star, laughed at him as he went over each mark with a kiss— exactly as he did with the Pretty Thing that had wandered into his new life. And his blood always ran cold as the story of being impaled on the throne with a sword meant to protect came out— with his Little Prince’s smile and his Pretty Thing’s sad eyes.


End file.
